Are last years cRIOs compatable with the 2015 Software

[MarkBalla-Tecnova]

We have been trying to get last years cRIO robot to work with the 2015 software but were unsuccessful. 

Here is a list of what we accomplished 

1.     Installed the 2015 NI Software for FRC and Update Suite on 2 Laptop computers

2.     Connected to the new roboRIO via Ethernet cable

3.     Successfully created and ran the default LabVIEW project 

1.     Connected the cRIO and Computer via Ethernet cable

2.     Reformatted last year’s cRIO using the “cRIO Imaging Tool 2015”

3.     Set the computer IP address to 10.xx.yy.11 (xxyy= team number)

4.     Successfully sent a ping command using the Windows command prompt

5.     2015 Driver station Communication LED turned Green indicating the cRIO was connected

6.     Joystick LED turned green after plugging a joystick

7.     Opened the FRC Robotics\cRIO\Robot and Motor\cRIO Motor Control.lvproj

8.     Changed the IP address of the RT CompactRIO target to 10.xx.yy.2

9.     Right clicked on the Target icon and selected Connect

10.     cRIO connected and the LED on the target icon turned green

11.     Opened the Motor Contro.vi

12.     Set the PWM channel

13.     Clicked on the white arrow to run the program

14.     Program deployed and the run arrow turned black as expected.

15.     Driver station Robot Code LED stayed RED

16.     Tried to stop the program by clicking on the Motor Control.vi “STOP” button

17.     STOP Button depressed but program did not stop

18.     Had to click on the abort button to stop the program.

19.     Attempted the same procedure with the second laptop with the same results.

20.     Opened the example FRC Robotics\roboRIO\Robot and Motor\Motor Control.lvproj

21.     Repeated steps 8 through 14

22.     Driver station Robot Code LED Stayed RED

23.     Clicked on “STOP” button and program stopped

24.     Created a new roboRIO project

25.     Entered team number and Selected “Arcade Drive Robot –cRIO”

26.     Tried to run the Robot Main.vi and it deployed and the run arrow turned black as expected

27.     Driver Station Robot Code LED stayed RED

28.     Created a build spec for Robot Main

29.     Built an rtexe and deployed it to the cRIO

30.     Set the exe to run at startup

31.     Rebooted the cRIO

32.     Robot code did not run as the robot indicator light stayed on continuously. 

Are we forgetting to do something?

Is there documentation showing how to get the cRIOs to work with the new software?

[Doug_Norman]

Your best bet for developming on a cRIO is to use last year's LabVIEW for FRC 2014 on a separate computer.  Your license for that software will not expire.

While the 2015 software should work, we did minimal testing with just the basic project.  At best what would work is a subset of what exists for the roboRIO.  By that I mean we removed cRIO features that were not needed for the roboRIO, and features added for the roboRIO were not added for the cRIO.

[MarkBalla-Tecnova]

Doug, 

We are also only trying to run the basic program and only want to use the cRIOs to support prototyping for the mechanical team.

The problem is it is unclear what steps need to be taken to allow the cRIOs to work.

In our current situation we have more controllers than development and drivers stations and have converted all of them to the 2015 software. 

Can you give us more information on how the cRIO was tested when it worked. 

What driver station was used?

What were the IP settings (Did it find the IP automatically or do we use the static 10.xxyy.2)

Are there specific settings for the driver station, imaging tool or other that we need to be aware of?

Were the vis ran through the dev environment or did you test only deployed code?

Any documentation on how the cRIOs were tested would be helpful. 

Thanks 

Mark

[Ryan-C]

Hi Mark,

A cRIO was tested briefly here with the default roboRIO project provided in FRC 2015 software, and it worked.  But that is about it.  No other changes or settings were looked at.

As Doug mentioned, a computer dedicated to having the old (2014) software is goign to be the best way to utilize the cRIO.

-Ryan

[Doug_Norman]

Hi Mark,

I tested this again this morning.  Here is what I did.

• I ran the cRIO Imaging Tool 2015 from the Utilities tab of the LabVIEW Getting Started Window and imaged to FRC_2015_v57
• In the project wizard I created Arcade Drive Robot - cRIO and entered 1959 for my team number
• I set the network adapter on my PC to IP address: 10.19.59.5 and Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
• I ran the 2015 Driver Station (I only have FRC 2015 installed here) and set my Team Number to 1959.  At this point the Communication LED on the Driver Station turned green. I also have a joystick connected and a green Joystick LED
• In the project I right-clicked on the Target and chose Connect, and successfully connected.  I could have just pressed the run arrow, but I decided to go step-by-step.
• I opened Robot Main.vi and let it load and compile.
• In the project I right-clicked on the lvproj file (at the top) and chose Save All (this Project).  I usually do this to avoid dialogs to save VIs when everything is downloading to the target.
• I pressed the run arrow on Robot Main.vi.  Once everything downloaded I got a green Robot Code LED on the Driver Station
• I enabled Teleop in the Driver Station and ran the two drive motors
• While Robot Main.vi was running, I went back into the project and built the default startup.rtexe file from the default build spec
• Once built I right-clicked on the build spec and chose Run as startup.  When prompted, I chose Yes to reboot the target.  Robot Main.vi was stopped, the Communications and Robot Code LED on the DS turned red for a minute.  Once the reboot finished, those LEDs turned green and I again enabled Teleop and ran the two drive motors.

I think this procedure answers all your questions.

Cheers,

Doug

[jonathan_b]

Doug:

Thank you very much for this through description and successful outcome to running the legacy 4 slot cRIO's with this season's (2015) LV code.

[Doug_Norman]

I did a bit more testing and saw the same problem you saw with the cRIO Motor Control example.  And this will be an issue for most cRIO examples.  Here are two problems with workarounds:

1. When you run an example, the STOP Boolean control on its front panel does not stop the VI.  The easy work around is to simply use the Abort button to stop the VI. Another work around would be to edit the code to call the Stop function in place of the Stop Communication VI.  You can refer to any roboRIO example to see how this is done.  Another alternative "fix" would be to edit the diagram of Stop Communication VI by replacing the code within the True case with the Stop function.
2. When you run the example, the Robot Code LED on the Driver Station does not turn green.  The work around is to add WPI_DriverStationReport Robot Code State.vi (found in the WPI Driver Station palette) to the while loop and wire a contant T Boolean to the TeleOp input (actually any input should work).

It is worth noting that if you edit shipping examples or WPI VIs, they may get overwritten if we have an FRC update.  The key words here are may and if - our goal is to not have an update, but if we do we may or may not fix this.

[MarkBalla-Tecnova]

Thanks Doug,  This is very helpful

[SaltyRobot]

Will updating to firmware v57 work for the 8 slot cRio?  Would you have some time to test this for the community?

[Doug_Norman]

The 8-slot cRIO is not supported at all for FRC 2015.  You will need to use FRC 2014 for the 8-slot.